Dellen Wood Products Inc., a 43-year-old Spokane maker of fireplace logs, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.


Documents that the company has filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court here list its total assets at about $1.1 million and its liabilities at about $3.5 million. More than $2.7 million of that amount, though, is owed to members of the Lentes family, which owns and operates the company, and the estate of a Lentes family member.


William E. Lentes, Dellens president, referred questions about the filing to the companys chief financial officer, Gene Olsen, who said, The company is still very viable. We just needed a little bit of time and space to take care of some things we need to deal with. Olsen added that the company expects to emerge from the reorganization once it resolves those financial issues.


Bankruptcy Court documents indicate that Dellens board approved the filing after General Electric Capital Corp. began seizing some of Dellens assets to satisfy a federal court judgment involving an equipment lease.


General Electric is one of two creditors listed in the Bankruptcy Court documents as holding secured claims against Dellen totaling $254,000. Banner Bank is the other secured creditor.


The documents also list 22 creditors who hold unsecured nonpriority claims totaling $3.2 million. The largest of those creditors are the estate of Ellen Lentes, William Lentes late wife, at $1.6 million, and William Lentes, at $507,000. Also listed among those creditors are two of the couples sons, Richard and Randal Lentes, who are company shareholders and are owed $305,000 and $302,000, respectively.


Two years ago, Dellen sold off an operation that made wooden parts, called cut stock, for wood-frame window makers and had accounted for 95 percent of its revenues. The buyer, Pristina Pine LLC, leased about 110,000 square feet of floor space in Dellens complex at 3014 N. Flora, and hired about 70 of the 120 people who had worked for Dellen.


Dellen had specialized in production of pine industrial cut stock, using Ponderosa pine lumber that the company bought from sawmills and cut into various widths and lengths. It then sold that stock to window makers. The sale of that operation to Pristina left Dellen with just a division that makes compressed-wood fireplace logs, called Dellogs, that are sold at supermarkets and elsewhere.


A Dellen executive said shortly after the transaction that selling off the bulk of the companys business was part of the long-term retirement plan of William Lentes, but that there were no plans to sell Dellens remaining assets.