I can provide an intuitive thought picture answer, that if you're doing something that boils down to numerical integration under a curve, a pile of hexagons or

I can provide an intuitive thought picture answer, that if you're doing something that boils down to numerical integration under a curve, a pile of hexagons or other polygons will win over a simple raster array of square pixels at a similar quantity of polygons, but when implemented, if its computationally cheaper to run the rectangular raster array at 10, 100, maybe 1000 times the resolution of the hexagon implementation, then the raster will always win at the overall systemic level at the numerical integration game. Not implying forest fires are simple numerical integration games, but they are similar-ish in trying to discrete-ize a non-discrete analog problem. If you were talking about EE DSP stuff, you'd call it quantization noise. Theoretically a floating point A/D converter would be nice / interesting if such a thing existed, but in practice you minimizing that noise source by using more fixed bits per sample.