Rates, light rail, school buses, rising government debt and hospital wait times were supposed to be the issues most talked about in the months leading up to October 17.

2020 had other ideas.

Through toxic bushfire smoke, then hail, flames and a global health and economic catastrophe, the ACT election-year narrative was rewritten - and ripped up and rewritten again and again - by a series of extraordinary events.

The Canberra Times has selected five days which defined 2020, chronicling the moments which altered the trajectory of a political year in which politics always seemed secondary.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr had told Canberrans to brace the worst fire conditions since 2003.

The Orroral Valley blaze, accidentally sparked by a Defence helicopter just after 1.30pm on January 27, had marched from deep inside Namadgi National Park to the doorstep of Canberra's southern suburbs by January 31.

Fire spread predictions maps showed Tharwa, Banks, Gordon and Conder could come under ember attack on February 1 if the forecast hot weather, strong winds and low humidity drove the blaze north.

"There was a heightened sense of vigilance, being very alert as to what the potential was for the day," Emergency Services Agency Commissioner Georgeina Whelan told The Canberra Times of her recollections of the morning of February 1.

The fire was upgraded to Emergency Level just after 3pm before it was wound back to Watch and Act at 4.44pm as conditions eased.

But as Canberrans breathed a sigh of relief, communities south of the border were in the grips of their own fire emergency. The Orroral Valley fire had crossed into NSW in the early hours of Saturday morning, eventually destroying 12 homes near Bredbo.

Whelan admits that her sense of relief that no lives or homes had been lost in Canberra was tempered by guilt at the damage the so-called Clear Range fire had wrought over the border.

"You have a sense of obligation to work with your neighbours and your partners," she said.

"I said to [then NSW RFS Commissioner] Shane Fitzsimmons, 'I am sorry, I feel really responsible' and his reaction was Georgeina, 'these things happen, which is why we continue to work together. Fires know no borders'."

The Orroral Valley fire never again threatened homes in the ACT, but would burn through about 80 per cent of Namadgi National Park before it was declared extinguished on February 28. Some parts of Namadgi might not reopen until 2023 due to the severity of the fire damage.

Although internal concerns about the response would emerge in the weeks and months that followed, ACT authorities - particularly Whelan - were praised for their handling of what Canberrans thought would be the biggest emergency of 2020.

"There was a sense of 'thank goodness this was not a 2003 revisited'," Whelan said.

On the morning of Friday, March 13, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was adamant he would attend the Cronulla Sharks' NRL season opener the following day.

Those plans were cancelled by Friday evening, following two meetings which altered the course of Australia's - and the ACT's - coronavirus response.

A day after Canberra recorded its first case of COVID-19, Mr Morrison and state and territory leaders - including Barr - convened inside Parramatta Stadium for what would turn out to be the final Council of Australian Governments meeting.

The nation's chief health and medical officers were meeting separately, preparing to advise Australia's top politicians that mass gatherings needed to be restricted to slow the virus' spread.

National cabinet was quickly formed and a ban on nonessential gatherings of more than 500 people declared for the following Monday. Restrictions would incrementally tighten until Australia was effectively in lockdown by late March.

As important as March 13 was, ACT chief health officer Kerryn Coleman said the most significant decision in Australia's fight against COVID-19 was made six days later - the closing of Australia's borders.

"While community restrictions can limit the spread once you get a case, turning the tap off is really the thing that had the most impact on managing our response," Dr Coleman told The Canberra Times.

"We had written [the option to close borders] as a consideration. It is always a consideration when you are implementing a public health response to an infectious disease which starts overseas, but that the decision was taken and implemented was ... kind of big deal."

Dr Coleman said there were "so many unknowns" about the virus in those early stages, a reality which forced the nation's top doctors to make decisions of enormous consequence based as much on what they thought might occur as what they actually knew.

"I think we all knew we were in this for the long haul and the decisions that we made would have long-term implications on health as well as social and economic," she said.

"At that point in time the focus was on not wanting to overrun the health system."

Against the backdrop of a city in lockdown, and an economy on the precipice of disaster, the April 2 sitting of the ACT Legislative Assembly marked an escalation in the Barr government's response to the evolving crisis.

In the space of a few frenzied hours, Barr announced a second tranche of economic support - a $214 million package headlined by tax relief and funding for a pop-up coronavirus hospital on Garran Oval - and the Assembly swiftly passed a package of emergency laws.

During question time, the chief minister even threw out the idea of purchasing a stake in attractions such as Canberra's zoo, so desperate and so dire was the outlook for the ACT's tourism sector amid widespread border closures and travel restrictions.

"I think there was a recognition that this wasn't going to be a two-month thing," Barr told The Canberra Times of his memories of April 2.

"There was an acknowledgement that this was going to be expensive and that it was going to have an impact on long-held policy and project aspirations for many in the Legislative Assembly.

"If there had been no COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 would have looked very different."

It might have been a footnote to the other events of April 2, but the establishment of a Legislative Assembly committee to scrutinise the Barr government's coronavirus response would ensure there was at least some oversight of its enormous and unprecedented new powers.

Amid the panic and uncertainty of the pandemic's early stages, there was doubt as to whether the ACT election would be able to proceed as planned.

The election ultimately went ahead on October 17, but it was far from an ordinary poll. The "vote early, vote safe" message was heeded, with about 70 per cent of electors casting their ballot before polling day.

On the campaign trail, Liberal leader Alistair Coe tried desperately to turn the election into a referendum on the cost of living, even resorting to Boris Johnson-inspired stunts to draw attention to his message.

Labor ran on the back of their successful handling of the summer fires and COVID-19 pandemic, pitching themselves as a safe pair of hands in times of unprecedented upheaval.

The volume of prepoll votes cast electronically meant it was always likely a result would be known not long after 6pm on October 17. The first votes counted showed a massive swing against the Liberals in their traditional southern suburbs stronghold, foreshadowing an outcome which would be all but confirmed two hours later.

A devastated Coe called Barr just after 8.30pm to concede defeat. Labor was returned for a sixth term.

"In this most challenging of years, Canberrans have turned to a strong and experienced government," Barr told supporters in his victory speech.

But Labor wasn't the only winner on October 17.

In the months before October 17, Shane Rattenbury remarked that if the results of the 2019 federal election were replicated at the ACT vote then the Greens could win up to six seats.

Few thought that possible. It would prove not only possible, but reality.

The Greens had trebled their presence in the Legislative Assembly when the results were officially declared on October 24, arming them with more power than ever ahead of negotiations with Labor on a deal to run the ACT for the next four years.

Barr initially played down the prospects of handing cabinet positions to Rattenbury's new colleagues, but the sheer size of the Greens cohort made that position untenable.

After a week of private negotiations, Barr and Rattenbury walked side-by-side into the Assembly's function room to ink the new parliamentary agreement. The deal handed the Greens three cabinet positions and a swag of policy wins, including on housing, gaming reform and electric cars.

"I think there was a real sense of achievement," Rattenbury told The Canberra Times.

"A moment like that is the culmination of not just a week of hard work or negotiating the agreement, or a whole year of the election campaign, but for me many years of trying to build up the Greens in the Assembly.

"To be able to walk into that room with a team of colleagues, knowing that two others were going to join me in cabinet, it was a real moment of reflecting on that long long journey of work.

"There is a sense of satisfaction but also of opportunity."

2020's other moments

January 20: Freak hailstorm lashes ACT, damaging 44,500 cars

January 22: A beekeeping operation gone wrong sparks fire near Canberra Airport

March 16: ACT declares public health emergency in response to COVID-19 pandemic

May 7: ACT government announce back-to-school plan

August 12: NSW government grants Canberrans stuck Victorian border permission to return home

August 27: Barr hands down budget update which forecasts near $1 billion deficit for 2020-21

October 27: Elizabeth Lee elected new Canberra Liberals leader, replacing Alistair Coe

December 19: NSW travel restrictions throw Canberrans' Christmas plan into chaos