Considering that winds both made the spread a lot further, faster and moving around fuel (trees/wood/material blowing around and ending up on streets and whatnot), it sounds unlikely any 1 solution would have prevented this.

No, vulcan vents only help when the exterior is capable of resisting the fire. These winds threw fist sized pieces of burning wood for hundreds of feet which is much harder to defend against.

All homeowners I know here have already had them installed over the last five years because of fire insurance inspections but I don’t know how representative my sample is.